Exactly half way through the school year with the publication of sets 35 and 36 mental arithmetic for Year 3. This is quite a mixed bag of questions covering number and measurement.

Two of the questions in each set look at time, which is often a problem for children. These two questions look at time intervals between two events. For example:

‘A TV programme starts at 4.50 and ends at 5.20. How long does it last?’

This presumes that knowledge of 60 minutes in an hour is known and the best way to proceed is to add on to the next whole hour (10 minutes) and then add on the extra minutes (20 minutes) to get 30 minutes.

These questions can be read out loud and children answer on paper, or they can just call out the answers, or show them on digit cards etc. Alternatively they can be given the question sheet to look at and record answers.